And I have searched back through the thread to try and find this post of yours which I should have responded to, and all I see is you begging the question.
No one ever suggested calling people "dickface."
So no, I didn't respond to that, and you should probably be able to figure out why, given your debate etiquette expertise. I've already stated that ridicule, when used properly, is measured and appropriate and not simple name-calling. You want to ignore that, so there's little more to be said about it.
Don't give a shit about civility in politics, I care about truth. An emphasis on civility gives you David Broder, truth gives you Edward R. Murrow.
This. Civility is for the civilized. The current Republican party is not civilized and therefore does not deserve civility. They do not respond to reason or courtesy. They do this.
Dobson: We’re going to talk about Planned Parenthood today which has been in the news recently in scandals that reveal just how evil and how sinister this organization really is.
Santorum: They have been pushing their agenda for close to a hundred years. I mean, it goes all the way back to Margaret Sanger and her views on eugenics, of culling the race from inferiors, that started Planned Parenthood. This was a movement to try to purify the race and she was for abortion and sterilization and things to get to her aim of a eugenics movement in this country and it was, unfortunately, widely accepted in the early part of the last century. That, with what happened in Nazi Germany which, by the way, took a lot of their eugenics ideas from Margaret Sanger and from the American eugenics movement and applied them to the Jews and other quote “undesirables” in Nazi Germany. But Planned Parenthood is the offshoot, is the progeny of Sanger and this movement and it continues today as they set up their clinics and as they try to ... again, if you look the statistics, target the minority community, the African American community where the abortion rates are much, much higher. This is no accident.
When a woman walks into an abortion clinic, she’s entitled to a dead baby and it doesn’t really matter how you do it - that’s where the abortion movement is moving.
"when Democrats criticized Senate Republicans for threatening to do away with the filibuster. “The audacity of some members to stand up and say, ‘How dare you break this rule?’ — it’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, ‘I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It’s mine.’ ”
...
Of the Darwinian view of a “purposeless universe,” Santorum wrote that “the Nazis built their pseudoethics with its grim logic on precisely this Nietzschean cosmological view.” Embryonic stem-cell research, he added, makes him “wonder if we have merely been momentarily delayed in our slide” toward the Nazi ethics.
No one expects Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, anyone else on right wing radio or Fox News, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, or other evangelical groups or even most prominent Republicans to use a civil tone. Its whats expected of them. Its only when liberals and progressives, the supposedly timid ones, start meeting their vitriol and hatred with some of their own that it becomes controversial.
Fuck that. You reap what you sow. Unilateral disarmament does not work; you can only have discourse when there are two parties acting in good faith, which is incompatible with claims that the other side is anti-God. When you call someone a Nazi for wanting to cover birth control co-pays under a health insurance plan, you don't get to tut tut over lack of civility.
Gonna side with Feral on this one. By engaging completely ridiculous grounds, you unintentionally legitimize the grounds by making it seem as if there is something of merit to talk about in the first place.
Also in the AIDS heyday, civility got us kind of nowhere. It took climbing government buildings to get something done.
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Sir Landsharkresting shark faceRegistered Userregular
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
Please consider the environment before printing this post.
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
A lot of times, civility is tied with the perception of complacency.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
A lot of times, civility is tied with the perception of complacency.
We have enforced civility in the court room, and that is where the most direct advocacy for a position takes place.
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
A lot of times, civility is tied with the perception of complacency.
We have enforced civility in the court room, and that is where the most direct advocacy for a position takes place.
The thing is, though, that in the courtroom, arguing in bad faith gets punished. For example, if you try to use a tax protester defense for why you didn't pay your taxes, the court is not going to listen to you. Instead, you're going to be ruled against, there's a good chance you'll add a contempt of court charge to the mix, and if you have formal representation, they're in danger of having a professional malpractice charge sent to the bar.
Making shit up wholesale on the spot is a lot easier than actually fact-checking and waging a coherent argument; The goal is saturation, not precision. Even if engaging in a rational discussion didn't lend it credence (but it does), it takes too much time to argue every single point, always.
Which, really, is part of the point. Fling out enough shit and something is going to stick.
I'm not sure liberals are falling for it as hard anymore. I mean evangelical white christian americans are like the most influential group of individuals on planet earth.
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
"Dearest senator Santorum, I feel that perhaps your assertion that homosexuality is equivalent to bestiality or pedophilia might be a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?" doesn't carry quite the same panache as "listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that."
There's also the fact that civil discourse and fact checking blatant shitsmears doesn't actually counter them, at all. In fact, it makes them more resolved.
If the pundit's arguments are strong enough to "utterly eviscerate" the person, then the job is already done.
Ahahahahahaha no. Go state the facts to a creationist some time. You will eventually be called either a liar, using faulty science, or a failed Christian for starting out assuming a secular universe. Then they will proceed to try and destroy what's left of the education system and scream at you if you dare suggest they don't.
Quid on
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
If the pundit's arguments are strong enough to "utterly eviscerate" the person, then the job is already done.
Ahahahahahaha no. Go state the facts to a creationist some time. You will eventually be called either a liar, using faulty science, or a failed Christian for starting out assuming a secular universe. Then they will proceed to try and destroy what's left of the education system and scream at you if you dare suggest they don't.
Facts aren't persuasive. There's 100 Years of marketing science which points to this.
Being correct never served to convince anyone of an argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles
Calling someone a stupid crazy idiot often fails to persuade people to agree with you. Shocking, I know.
Persuasion and political action require drawing on common ground and experiences to achieve consensus.
Like say here: http://www.ducks.org/
Civility is a central pillar in developing consensus especially in dissimilar groups. See ducks.
Your opponents can be factually wrong. Doesn't fucking matter. Welcome to Democracy.
Fact resistant populations are powerful because they don't change their minds. Trying to win the fact war against such populations is a exercise in mental masturbation.
Good job I guess.
Winning the civility war, finding common ground through proper messaging and not point out their views are out of relation with the world give the person who does so enormous political power.
But Have a field day with your intellectual masturbation and glory in being RIGHT.
Mazel Tov.
You are the disease which has drawn the US into political Grid Lock.
What is a Good man but a bad mans teacher?
What is a bad man but a good mans job?
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
Except you aren't going to convince the person you are arguing with alot of the time. The point is to make their ridiculousness obvious to the audience.
Calling someone a stupid crazy idiot often fails to persuade people to agree with you.
Ask a hundred people why racism is bad. Odds are 95 of them don't actually know why it's bad, they just know it is and would be ashamed to be outwardly racist. And the ones that aren't personally ashamed don't bother anyway because of the social consequences. When someone is being a douche, I will treat them like a douche. And being a douche includes misrepresenting facts, lying, and try to ruin my society for their own personal greed.
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
"Dearest senator Santorum, I feel that perhaps your assertion that homosexuality is equivalent to bestiality or pedophilia might be a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?" doesn't carry quite the same panache as "listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that."
Certainly there must be those that exist who possess adeptness of language so as to formulate a coherent retort that doesn't fall into the binary you've set up.
Calling someone a stupid crazy idiot often fails to persuade people to agree with you.
Ask a hundred people why racism is bad. Odds are 95 of them don't actually know why it's bad, they just know it is and would be ashamed to be outwardly racist. And the ones that aren't personally ashamed don't bother anyway because of the social consequences. When someone is being a douche, I will treat them like a douche. And being a douche includes misrepresenting facts, lying, and try to ruin my society for their own personal greed.
This is even more obvious in politics since it's fucking ridiculous to even entertain the idea that a political debate between 2 candidates will ever result in one going "Oh, I guess I was wrong!".
No politician will ever admit they aren't right. The whole point of political debate isn't to convince the other candidate, it's to convince the audience.
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
"Dearest senator Santorum, I feel that perhaps your assertion that homosexuality is equivalent to bestiality or pedophilia might be a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?" doesn't carry quite the same panache as "listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that."
Certainly there must be those that exist who possess adeptness of language so as to formulate a coherent retort that doesn't fall into the binary you've set up.
That doesn't make a lick of sense. You need to read more carefully.
Thanatos is not saying a polite coherent retort couldn't be made. He, in fact, even gives a polite coherent retort in his example.
He's saying a polite coherent retort isn't as effective as one that includes ridicule.
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SerukoFerocious Kittenof The Farthest NorthRegistered Userregular
Except you aren't going to convince the person you are arguing with alot of the time. The point is to make their ridiculousness obvious to the audience.
Then, quite transparently to both the audience and the person you're speaking with, you're being a condescending douche bag.
Why are we assuming that civility goes hand-in-hand with complacency? If someone is spouting lies it's very possible call them out on it without being a dick.
"Dearest senator Santorum, I feel that perhaps your assertion that homosexuality is equivalent to bestiality or pedophilia might be a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?" doesn't carry quite the same panache as "listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that."
Certainly there must be those that exist who possess adeptness of language so as to formulate a coherent retort that doesn't fall into the binary you've set up.
Or more to the point. Why are you trying to convince a closed minded bigot of anything at all? Do you also like punching yourself in the genitals?
If you want to achieve action in the political sphere you're just wasting your time. If you want to score points with people who already agree with you... then who cares?
Seruko on
"How are you going to play Dota if your fingers and bitten off? You can't. That's how" -> Carnarvon
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
Except you aren't going to convince the person you are arguing with alot of the time. The point is to make their ridiculousness obvious to the audience.
Then, quite transparently, to both the audience and the person you're speaking with you're being a condescending douche bag.
If you think the goal is anything but convincing the audience and avoiding concession, then you have little grasp on sociopolitical interactions. Politic is not dialogue for Truth with a philosophical capital T.
If the pundit's arguments are strong enough to "utterly eviscerate" the person, then the job is already done.
Ahahahahahaha no. Go state the facts to a creationist some time. You will eventually be called either a liar, using faulty science, or a failed Christian for starting out assuming a secular universe. Then they will proceed to try and destroy what's left of the education system and scream at you if you dare suggest they don't.
Facts aren't persuasive. There's 100 Years of marketing science which points to this.
Being correct never served to convince anyone of an argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles
Calling someone a stupid crazy idiot often fails to persuade people to agree with you. Shocking, I know.
Persuasion and political action require drawing on common ground and experiences to achieve consensus.
Like say here: http://www.ducks.org/
Civility is a central pillar in developing consensus especially in dissimilar groups. See ducks.
Your opponents can be factually wrong. Doesn't fucking matter. Welcome to Democracy.
Fact resistant populations are powerful because they don't change their minds. Trying to win the fact war against such populations is a exercise in mental masturbation.
Good job I guess.
Winning the civility war, finding common ground through proper messaging and not point out their views are out of relation with the world give the person who does so enormous political power.
But Have a field day with your intellectual masturbation and glory in being RIGHT.
Mazel Tov.
You are the disease which has drawn the US into political Grid Lock.
What is a Good man but a bad mans teacher?
What is a bad man but a good mans job?
I wish we had lime still.
And in this conversation, I've been pretty abstract since I wasn't part of the original thread really, but it's something to keep in mind. This thread didn't come up because people were saying snarky things about creationists. It came up because people were mocking a man for having a funeral for his unborn child. There is no philosophy or policy there being shown to be ridiculous. Only people being as nasty as they possibly can, about anything and everything they can, even if it's completely unrelated to anything. Which is boorish, childish, foolish, and ineffective at accomplishing anything positive.
Uh, I may have missed that gem. Who exactly had a funeral for his unborn and if first term, probably yet undifferentiated, blastocyst?
Rick Santorum.
edit: The funeral isn't the crazy part. He bought it home, made his kids touch it and slept with it before giving the stillborn baby its funeral. Its not exactly rational, but I give him some slack since people deal with grieving differently.
Harry Dresden on
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Uh, I may have missed that gem. Who exactly had a funeral for his unborn and if first term, probably yet undifferentiated, blastocyst?
Santorum and his family lost a child and they had understandably, a hard time in the grieving process. People were mocking that process, which really has nothing to do with the reasons Santorum would be an awful president. That was the original argument that spawned this thread.
But by now the thread has sort of moved beyond that.
Except you aren't going to convince the person you are arguing with alot of the time. The point is to make their ridiculousness obvious to the audience.
Then, quite transparently to both the audience and the person you're speaking with, you're being a condescending douche bag.
How is it at all transparent?
Calling a stupid idea stupid is more likely to get people to go "Yeah, that idea is stupid".
If the pundit's arguments are strong enough to "utterly eviscerate" the person, then the job is already done.
Ahahahahahaha no. Go state the facts to a creationist some time. You will eventually be called either a liar, using faulty science, or a failed Christian for starting out assuming a secular universe. Then they will proceed to try and destroy what's left of the education system and scream at you if you dare suggest they don't.
Facts aren't persuasive. There's 100 Years of marketing science which points to this.
Being correct never served to convince anyone of an argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles
Calling someone a stupid crazy idiot often fails to persuade people to agree with you. Shocking, I know.
Persuasion and political action require drawing on common ground and experiences to achieve consensus.
Like say here: http://www.ducks.org/
Civility is a central pillar in developing consensus especially in dissimilar groups. See ducks.
Your opponents can be factually wrong. Doesn't fucking matter. Welcome to Democracy.
Fact resistant populations are powerful because they don't change their minds. Trying to win the fact war against such populations is a exercise in mental masturbation.
Good job I guess.
Winning the civility war, finding common ground through proper messaging and not point out their views are out of relation with the world give the person who does so enormous political power.
But Have a field day with your intellectual masturbation and glory in being RIGHT.
Mazel Tov.
You are the disease which has drawn the US into political Grid Lock.
What is a Good man but a bad mans teacher?
What is a bad man but a good mans job?
I wish we had lime still.
I'm sure you wish you had a point too.
Unfortunately, all of this fails right off the bat since it's based on the assumption that you are trying to convince the guy you are arguing, which in politics is never true at any public level.
And in this conversation, I've been pretty abstract since I wasn't part of the original thread really, but it's something to keep in mind. This thread didn't come up because people were saying snarky things about creationists. It came up because people were mocking a man for having a funeral for his unborn child. There is no philosophy or policy there being shown to be ridiculous. Only people being as nasty as they possibly can, about anything and everything they can, even if it's completely unrelated to anything. Which is boorish, childish, foolish, and ineffective at accomplishing anything positive.
Except, as people pointed out, this was only an issue because he keeps bringing it up himself.
I feel like people in this thread are talking about very different things.
We started out talking about ridicule: "Somethings are so ridiculous on their face that ridicule is the only acceptable response."
But Shryke describes Thanatos's example of ""listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that." as ridicule.
I wouldn't call that ridicule. I'd call that vitriol.
Ridicule is what Jon Stewart does on a regular basis. Vitriol is what Newt Gingrich resorts to from time to time. I wouldn't really compare them.
And since you're arguing tge pro ridicule stance, presumably you think Nick's son would have won that argument by throwing in a couple of well placed jibes?
Notice that as effective and despicable as Nick's tactics are, they certainly aren't based in ridicule.
Well I guess that is a tangent not worth running off into. Suffice it to say you are both potentially quite wrong, but we will have to table it until a more appropriate time or we will never get out of the rabbit hole, yes?
To use a different example, I'm an American History X kind of a guy. I think that movie really illustrates the American neo-nazi mindset, and how one ends up there. And I think there's a lot to be learned there. But there's no way to make that movie starting from the mindset that bigots are all just so horrible we need to shame them into hiding.
There is always the potential that any one of us can be quite wrong. However wouldn't you also concede that their are indeed entirely bad actors within discussions? I mean, people who are so wallowing in self-denial and just smart enough to realize how to hide that denial behind a veil of plausible excuses which enable them to never have to change? Do you not believe there are people who are entirely so closed off that they cannot be reached via discussion and yet, choose to trumpet what they believe and shout down and silence critics? Is there no circumstance where you might admit that sometimes this is a necessary strategy? To take a more physical example if a psychopath were slowly cutting chunks of flesh off of your child while you were tied to a chair watching, would you not say that perhaps if you managed to escape it would be appropriate to use whatever force was necessary to put an end to that event even if it meant immediate application of deadly force?
I feel like people in this thread are talking about very different things.
We started out talking about ridicule: "Somethings are so ridiculous on their face that ridicule is the only acceptable response."
But Shryke describes Thanatos's example of ""listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that." as ridicule.
I wouldn't call that ridicule. I'd call that vitriol.
Ridicule is what Jon Stewart does on a regular basis. Vitriol is what Newt Gingrich resorts to from time to time. I wouldn't really compare them.
Oh, personal grief is a touchy subject. Nevermind. I thought it was one of those unborn babby funerals the anti-choice people have.
Right. I think that mockery was wrong because it was a bad thing to mock, not because there should be a unilateral rule against mockery in discourse.
One man's ridicule is another's vitriol. A joke about someone's religious faith for instance or application of their religious beliefs in a way that, to the secular seems good-humored ridicule to the believer could seem like a cruel and uncaring personal assault. The problem is what really differentiates the two is entirely within the mind of the listener and this allows for any person to claim foul without ever having any real way to objectively define what a "foul" is in this context.
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
I feel like people in this thread are talking about very different things.
We started out talking about ridicule: "Somethings are so ridiculous on their face that ridicule is the only acceptable response."
But Shryke describes Thanatos's example of ""listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that." as ridicule.
I wouldn't call that ridicule. I'd call that vitriol.
Ridicule is what Jon Stewart does on a regular basis. Vitriol is what Newt Gingrich resorts to from time to time. I wouldn't really compare them.
Yes, I'm not sure how ridicule, mockery, or vitriol would strengthen the boys position in that clip. If we extrapolated this situation to political discourse, any of those options would easily be deflected or spun towards making them seem prone to anger. The counter approach in this case seems limited to utilizing an equal or greater amount of cunning in use of language and manipulation.
Yes, I'm not sure how ridicule, mockery, or vitriol would strengthen the boys position in that clip. If we extrapolated this situation to political discourse, any of those options would easily be deflected or spun towards making them seem prone to anger. The counter approach in this case seems limited to utilizing an equal or greater amount of cunning in use of language and manipulation.
Wouldn't ridicule, hyperbole, etc. in this case just be considered rhetorical devices to enable further language manipulation and therefore be considered ways of returning fire? Outright ridicule no, but you can spin a response that exposes the manipulations inherent in the first argument so as to paint them as ridiculous. I'd respond as follows:
"You need more than chocolate? Well that's great, I'm sure Vanilla is a fine flavor but it is one I'll never need. But let it be said that I speak not of the sales of ice cream vendors only of the personal satisfaction I derive from the wholesome goodness of chocolate. So be it known that while Liberty is preserved when vendors may sell Vanilla, that Liberty is meaningless when it is not enshrined in one's ability to freely and evenly decide between a multitude of choices which include not only Vanilla but also the most pure flavor of Chocolate. So while you may believe that Vanilla is liberty but your words ring hollow when your speech implicates that the only shade of liberty in Vanilla. I do contend that without the free and equal access to the goodness of chocolate that your "liberty" is merely tyranny disguised in a clever cone with sprinkles on top! Give me chocolate or give me death!" ;D
The above? To me, I think that'd be a form of ridicule since I'm playing on the meme of Vanilla = liberty, calling his liberty tyranny, hamming the language up a bit more and even paraphrasing a famous quote to try and up the ante; doing so in a way I'd hope that'd expose the level of manipulation in the previous statement by trying to slowly take it into the realm of parody. What do you think?
If the best you can come up with against someone who's patently ignorant is to yell back at him, "Yeah? Well there's BOOKS, and they say you're WRONG!"
Then honestly you're not coming out of this looking great either.
Except you aren't going to convince the person you are arguing with alot of the time. The point is to make their ridiculousness obvious to the audience.
Then, quite transparently, to both the audience and the person you're speaking with you're being a condescending douche bag.
If you think the goal is anything but convincing the audience and avoiding concession, then you have little grasp on sociopolitical interactions. Politic is not dialogue for Truth with a philosophical capital T.
I'm at work which is why I've been less active today despite being one of this thread's instigators, but I'm trying to keep up with things.
As for the above, isn't this virtually the definition of arguing in bad faith? You admit that you're not open to changing your mind in the slightest (avoiding concession), and that you're also not trying to persuade your opponent. Basically you're putting on a show, and admitting to it.
I get that this is common practice nowadays, I'm not that naive, but I can't help but feel it's a suboptimal approach to things.
Your response was way too long. The man in the video was simple and concise, you just come off as blathering, essentially. It doesn't seem unlikely that a trained or skilled social manipulator would be able to respond with a simple retort that painted you as reactionary and long winded.
Yes, I'm not sure how ridicule, mockery, or vitriol would strengthen the boys position in that clip. If we extrapolated this situation to political discourse, any of those options would easily be deflected or spun towards making them seem prone to anger. The counter approach in this case seems limited to utilizing an equal or greater amount of cunning in use of language and manipulation.
Wouldn't ridicule, hyperbole, etc. in this case just be considered rhetorical devices to enable further language manipulation and therefore be considered ways of returning fire? Outright ridicule no, but you can spin a response that exposes the manipulations inherent in the first argument so as to paint them as ridiculous. I'd respond as follows:
"You need more than chocolate? Well that's great, I'm sure Vanilla is a fine flavor but it is one I'll never need. But let it be said that I speak not of the sales of ice cream vendors only of the personal satisfaction I derive from the wholesome goodness of chocolate. So be it known that while Liberty is preserved when vendors may sell Vanilla, that Liberty is meaningless when it is not enshrined in one's ability to freely and evenly decide between a multitude of choices which include not only Vanilla but also the most pure flavor of Chocolate. So while you may believe that Vanilla is liberty but your words ring hollow when your speech implicates that the only shade of liberty in Vanilla. I do contend that without the free and equal access to the goodness of chocolate that your "liberty" is merely tyranny disguised in a clever cone with sprinkles on top! Give me chocolate or give me death!" ;D
The above? To me, I think that'd be a form of ridicule since I'm playing on the meme of Vanilla = liberty, calling his liberty tyranny, hamming the language up a bit more and even paraphrasing a famous quote to try and up the ante; doing so in a way I'd hope that'd expose the level of manipulation in the previous statement by trying to slowly take it into the realm of parody. What do you think?
Posts
No one ever suggested calling people "dickface."
So no, I didn't respond to that, and you should probably be able to figure out why, given your debate etiquette expertise. I've already stated that ridicule, when used properly, is measured and appropriate and not simple name-calling. You want to ignore that, so there's little more to be said about it.
Or Santorum on Planned Parenthood Or in 2005
No one expects Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, anyone else on right wing radio or Fox News, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, or other evangelical groups or even most prominent Republicans to use a civil tone. Its whats expected of them. Its only when liberals and progressives, the supposedly timid ones, start meeting their vitriol and hatred with some of their own that it becomes controversial.
Fuck that. You reap what you sow. Unilateral disarmament does not work; you can only have discourse when there are two parties acting in good faith, which is incompatible with claims that the other side is anti-God. When you call someone a Nazi for wanting to cover birth control co-pays under a health insurance plan, you don't get to tut tut over lack of civility.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
We have enforced civility in the court room, and that is where the most direct advocacy for a position takes place.
The thing is, though, that in the courtroom, arguing in bad faith gets punished. For example, if you try to use a tax protester defense for why you didn't pay your taxes, the court is not going to listen to you. Instead, you're going to be ruled against, there's a good chance you'll add a contempt of court charge to the mix, and if you have formal representation, they're in danger of having a professional malpractice charge sent to the bar.
Which, really, is part of the point. Fling out enough shit and something is going to stick.
I'm not sure liberals are falling for it as hard anymore. I mean evangelical white christian americans are like the most influential group of individuals on planet earth.
It astounds me every time they play the victim
Mockery is the best bet.
Ahahahahahaha no. Go state the facts to a creationist some time. You will eventually be called either a liar, using faulty science, or a failed Christian for starting out assuming a secular universe. Then they will proceed to try and destroy what's left of the education system and scream at you if you dare suggest they don't.
Facts aren't persuasive. There's 100 Years of marketing science which points to this.
Being correct never served to convince anyone of an argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles
Calling someone a stupid crazy idiot often fails to persuade people to agree with you. Shocking, I know.
Persuasion and political action require drawing on common ground and experiences to achieve consensus.
Like say here: http://www.ducks.org/
Civility is a central pillar in developing consensus especially in dissimilar groups. See ducks.
Your opponents can be factually wrong. Doesn't fucking matter. Welcome to Democracy.
Fact resistant populations are powerful because they don't change their minds. Trying to win the fact war against such populations is a exercise in mental masturbation.
Good job I guess.
Winning the civility war, finding common ground through proper messaging and not point out their views are out of relation with the world give the person who does so enormous political power.
But Have a field day with your intellectual masturbation and glory in being RIGHT.
Mazel Tov.
You are the disease which has drawn the US into political Grid Lock.
What is a Good man but a bad mans teacher?
What is a bad man but a good mans job?
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
Ask a hundred people why racism is bad. Odds are 95 of them don't actually know why it's bad, they just know it is and would be ashamed to be outwardly racist. And the ones that aren't personally ashamed don't bother anyway because of the social consequences. When someone is being a douche, I will treat them like a douche. And being a douche includes misrepresenting facts, lying, and try to ruin my society for their own personal greed.
Edit: And as Shryke points out
This is even more obvious in politics since it's fucking ridiculous to even entertain the idea that a political debate between 2 candidates will ever result in one going "Oh, I guess I was wrong!".
No politician will ever admit they aren't right. The whole point of political debate isn't to convince the other candidate, it's to convince the audience.
That doesn't make a lick of sense. You need to read more carefully.
Thanatos is not saying a polite coherent retort couldn't be made. He, in fact, even gives a polite coherent retort in his example.
He's saying a polite coherent retort isn't as effective as one that includes ridicule.
Then, quite transparently to both the audience and the person you're speaking with, you're being a condescending douche bag.
Or more to the point. Why are you trying to convince a closed minded bigot of anything at all? Do you also like punching yourself in the genitals?
If you want to achieve action in the political sphere you're just wasting your time. If you want to score points with people who already agree with you... then who cares?
"You can be yodeling bear without spending a dime if you get lucky." -> reVerse
"In the grim darkness of the future, we will all be nurses catering to the whims of terrible old people." -> Hacksaw
"In fact, our whole society will be oriented around caring for one very decrepit, very old man on total life support." -> SKFM
I mean, the first time I met a non-white person was when this Vietnamese kid tried to break my legs but that was entirely fair because he was a centreback, not because he was a subhuman beast in some zoo ->yotes
I wish we had lime still.
And in this conversation, I've been pretty abstract since I wasn't part of the original thread really, but it's something to keep in mind. This thread didn't come up because people were saying snarky things about creationists. It came up because people were mocking a man for having a funeral for his unborn child. There is no philosophy or policy there being shown to be ridiculous. Only people being as nasty as they possibly can, about anything and everything they can, even if it's completely unrelated to anything. Which is boorish, childish, foolish, and ineffective at accomplishing anything positive.
--LeVar Burton
Rick Santorum.
edit: The funeral isn't the crazy part. He bought it home, made his kids touch it and slept with it before giving the stillborn baby its funeral. Its not exactly rational, but I give him some slack since people deal with grieving differently.
Santorum and his family lost a child and they had understandably, a hard time in the grieving process. People were mocking that process, which really has nothing to do with the reasons Santorum would be an awful president. That was the original argument that spawned this thread.
But by now the thread has sort of moved beyond that.
How is it at all transparent?
Calling a stupid idea stupid is more likely to get people to go "Yeah, that idea is stupid".
I'm sure you wish you had a point too.
Unfortunately, all of this fails right off the bat since it's based on the assumption that you are trying to convince the guy you are arguing, which in politics is never true at any public level.
Except, as people pointed out, this was only an issue because he keeps bringing it up himself.
We started out talking about ridicule: "Somethings are so ridiculous on their face that ridicule is the only acceptable response."
But Shryke describes Thanatos's example of ""listen, you pile of shit and semen: you are a vile bigot, and it is appalling that you would say something like that." as ridicule.
I wouldn't call that ridicule. I'd call that vitriol.
Ridicule is what Jon Stewart does on a regular basis. Vitriol is what Newt Gingrich resorts to from time to time. I wouldn't really compare them.
Edit:
Right. I think that mockery was wrong because it was a bad thing to mock, not because there should be a unilateral rule against mockery in discourse.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
And since you're arguing tge pro ridicule stance, presumably you think Nick's son would have won that argument by throwing in a couple of well placed jibes?
Notice that as effective and despicable as Nick's tactics are, they certainly aren't based in ridicule.
--LeVar Burton
There is always the potential that any one of us can be quite wrong. However wouldn't you also concede that their are indeed entirely bad actors within discussions? I mean, people who are so wallowing in self-denial and just smart enough to realize how to hide that denial behind a veil of plausible excuses which enable them to never have to change? Do you not believe there are people who are entirely so closed off that they cannot be reached via discussion and yet, choose to trumpet what they believe and shout down and silence critics? Is there no circumstance where you might admit that sometimes this is a necessary strategy? To take a more physical example if a psychopath were slowly cutting chunks of flesh off of your child while you were tied to a chair watching, would you not say that perhaps if you managed to escape it would be appropriate to use whatever force was necessary to put an end to that event even if it meant immediate application of deadly force?
edit:
One man's ridicule is another's vitriol. A joke about someone's religious faith for instance or application of their religious beliefs in a way that, to the secular seems good-humored ridicule to the believer could seem like a cruel and uncaring personal assault. The problem is what really differentiates the two is entirely within the mind of the listener and this allows for any person to claim foul without ever having any real way to objectively define what a "foul" is in this context.
I agree with the first half of your post but I disagree in regards to Santorum, as I said upthread.
Wouldn't ridicule, hyperbole, etc. in this case just be considered rhetorical devices to enable further language manipulation and therefore be considered ways of returning fire? Outright ridicule no, but you can spin a response that exposes the manipulations inherent in the first argument so as to paint them as ridiculous. I'd respond as follows:
"You need more than chocolate? Well that's great, I'm sure Vanilla is a fine flavor but it is one I'll never need. But let it be said that I speak not of the sales of ice cream vendors only of the personal satisfaction I derive from the wholesome goodness of chocolate. So be it known that while Liberty is preserved when vendors may sell Vanilla, that Liberty is meaningless when it is not enshrined in one's ability to freely and evenly decide between a multitude of choices which include not only Vanilla but also the most pure flavor of Chocolate. So while you may believe that Vanilla is liberty but your words ring hollow when your speech implicates that the only shade of liberty in Vanilla. I do contend that without the free and equal access to the goodness of chocolate that your "liberty" is merely tyranny disguised in a clever cone with sprinkles on top! Give me chocolate or give me death!" ;D
The above? To me, I think that'd be a form of ridicule since I'm playing on the meme of Vanilla = liberty, calling his liberty tyranny, hamming the language up a bit more and even paraphrasing a famous quote to try and up the ante; doing so in a way I'd hope that'd expose the level of manipulation in the previous statement by trying to slowly take it into the realm of parody. What do you think?
I'm at work which is why I've been less active today despite being one of this thread's instigators, but I'm trying to keep up with things.
As for the above, isn't this virtually the definition of arguing in bad faith? You admit that you're not open to changing your mind in the slightest (avoiding concession), and that you're also not trying to persuade your opponent. Basically you're putting on a show, and admitting to it.
I get that this is common practice nowadays, I'm not that naive, but I can't help but feel it's a suboptimal approach to things.
Your response was way too long. The man in the video was simple and concise, you just come off as blathering, essentially. It doesn't seem unlikely that a trained or skilled social manipulator would be able to respond with a simple retort that painted you as reactionary and long winded.
Chocolate vs. vanilla? You racist fuck. :P